Soulsborne thead (Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne)

[+GoldenWheels]

I finally beat Placidsuax last night. It was not, let's say, a highly skilled victory (you can actually proc poison by using poison arrows on him, without waking him up, so I did that). I still had to do a little bit of "real fighting" as I didn't have enough arrows/damage to kill him with just that. But it is done.

 

All I really "have left" is Malenia, and the final boss.

[zzip]

6 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

My Elden Ring ending cutscene was  usual Soulsbourne type i honestly have absolutely zero idea what difference to anything, me joining the Volcano Manor and completing all it's side quests, actually made. 

I think what quests you complete can have a big effect on the ending you get.   In fact I'm pretty sure I know which questline caused me to get the weird ending that I did.

[zzip]

I don't usually play NG+ on these games,  but I decided to try to do a couple of the quests that I botched.

 

It is so easy!  I'm way overpowered for it.   You still have to rediscover all the sites of grace before you can fast travel,  but in just a few hours I already beat both bosses in Stormveil Castle, both bosses in Raya Lucaria academy,  the Town of Sellia in Caelid, got both halves of the Dectus medallion to activate the great lift, and killed a few field bosses in my way.   I'm already in the Royal Captial.    Just got to beat one of the bosses there and I think I can finish the quests and then I'll be done with the game.

 

At least until DLC comes out! 

 

Did find another quest I had forgotten about..   The old man and the sick girl near Sellia.   After you heal her she says she's going on a journey.   Wonder if you were supposed to help her further because I never saw her again in my original playthrough

[Austin]

2 hours ago, GoldenWheels said:

I finally beat Placidsuax last night. It was not, let's say, a highly skilled victory (you can actually proc poison by using poison arrows on him, without waking him up, so I did that). I still had to do a little bit of "real fighting" as I didn't have enough arrows/damage to kill him with just that. But it is done.

That was the only boss I did not defeat. I was at the hundred hour mark by then and was like, "I need this to be over with, NOW."

[Lostdragon]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

I don't usually play NG+ on these games,  but I decided to try to do a couple of the quests that I botched.

 

It is so easy!  I'm way overpowered for it.   You still have to rediscover all the sites of grace before you can fast travel,  but in just a few hours I already beat both bosses in Stormveil Castle, both bosses in Raya Lucaria academy,  the Town of Sellia in Caelid, got both halves of the Dectus medallion to activate the great lift, and killed a few field bosses in my way.   I'm already in the Royal Captial.    Just got to beat one of the bosses there and I think I can finish the quests and then I'll be done with the game.

 

At least until DLC comes out! 

 

Did find another quest I had forgotten about..   The old man and the sick girl near Sellia.   After you heal her she says she's going on a journey.   Wonder if you were supposed to help her further because I never saw her again in my original playthrough

One with Scarlet Rot? 

 

Did that one, saw her twice after in different locations, she just talked of her future plans each time. 

[zzip]

3 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

One with Scarlet Rot? 

 

Did that one, saw her twice after in different locations, she just talked of her future plans each time. 

Yeah, her,   I looked her up, and it looks like she makes several more appearances in the game.  Plus she can invade you in some spot or be summoned as an NPC fighter for certain boss fights.

 

I think  it's because I went to Altus Plateau before Caelid in my playthough so that's probably why I never ran into her again.

 

7 hours ago, zzip said:

It is so easy!  I'm way overpowered for it.   You still have to rediscover all the sites of grace before you can fast travel,  but in just a few hours I already beat both bosses in Stormveil Castle, both bosses in Raya Lucaria academy,  the Town of Sellia in Caelid, got both halves of the Dectus medallion to activate the great lift, and killed a few field bosses in my way.   I'm already in the Royal Captial.    Just got to beat one of the bosses there and I think I can finish the quests and then I'll be done with the game.

Leyndell Royal Capital is the only place that slowed me down in NG+.   Not because the enemies were too challenging, because I forgot how to get around the city to get to the Godfrey boss fight ?

[+GoldenWheels]

I beat Malenia (finally) and thought Elden Beast would be no biggie (I had tried it a few times after beating Radogan but bailed, as I wanted to beat Malenia first and I was actually afraid I'd kill it easily). Dang. Elden Beast took me another week of attempts. Thank goodness for the anti-holy damage liver you can consume. I tried it for the hell of it (literally an exasperated "why not!!") and beat him that round.

 

I am now busy grinding frogs in the blood palace with the end game sword. I want EVERYTHING I need to play ANY STYLE/BUILD before I move to NG+. I am just about there. Every decent weapon to +9/+24, all ashes maxed, almost all talismans.....but Jar Alexander quest still seems bugged and continues to elude me. Oh well....can't have everything!

[zzip]

19 minutes ago, GoldenWheels said:

I beat Malenia (finally) and thought Elden Beast would be no biggie (I had tried it a few times after beating Radogan but bailed, as I wanted to beat Malenia first and I was actually afraid I'd kill it easily). Dang. Elden Beast took me another week of attempts. Thank goodness for the anti-holy damage liver you can consume. I tried it for the hell of it (literally an exasperated "why not!!") and beat him that round.

Congrats!    Elden Beast was a strange one,  almost beat it my first try with just an ash summons, but then I had a very bad time at it on repeated tries.

 

[zzip]

Elden Ring, took up so much of my free time that once I finished it, I didn't know what to do with all that free time! ?  Did spend a few hours in NG+ but it's very easy compared to the first run through.   But there's no way in hell I'm restarting this game from scratch!    I will probably start a playthrough of another Souls game at some point, most likely DS3 since it's been awhile.   But for now, trying to find other projects to work on, preferable not game related.

[Lostdragon]

16 hours ago, zzip said:

Elden Ring, took up so much of my free time that once I finished it, I didn't know what to do with all that free time! ?  Did spend a few hours in NG+ but it's very easy compared to the first run through.   But there's no way in hell I'm restarting this game from scratch!    I will probably start a playthrough of another Souls game at some point, most likely DS3 since it's been awhile.   But for now, trying to find other projects to work on, preferable not game related.

I went route of trying something completely different afterwards. 

 

A few days trying to finish PS4 Dragon's Crown (finished PS3 version years ago can't remember how to get last rune ?) 

 

 

Then started Judgement, rather liking it. 

[Lostdragon]

A rather lovely Bloodborne vibe to this 2D affair. 

 

 

[Austin]

I started a new game of Elden Ring a few weeks back. Not really sure why I got the urge to try it again, but I did.

 

The focus this time was to see how much faster I could get through it, along with experimenting with magic. This has required me to put stat increases into Int and Mind, but it's been fun-ish having the option to use long range attacks occasionally with various spells.

 

What's the best magic you guys have found? I'm still using the basic low-level spells, like Glintstone Pebble. I have some other ones but they don't seem to do a lot of damage and thus not really worth the drain on my FP. Some of the cooler ones look to require more INT, so I won't get to try them for a while.

 

Things in this playthrough were moving smoothly at first, especially with me mostly skipping caves and catacombs, but the game is so damn large I'm already finding myself forgetting where to go next. One playthrough at launch wasn't enough for me to memorize most of the key locations. So, while the beginning was fun, I'm finding myself progressing more slowly now. I've started visiting caves in the last couple of hours because it's hard to get smithing stones elsewhere, and as I get to tougher areas, I really need my weapons to be more powerful. I did just unlock the capital, so maybe I'll hit that up soon-ish, though I'm not expecting it to be a walk in the park since I'll be hitting it much earlier than last time.

 

Some things have gone differently than I remember on my first playthrough. For instance, at Radahn's festival, I apparently didn't qualify it yet and so I ended up having to fight a double boss, which included the Crucible Knight and Misbegotten Warrior. That was an unexpected total pain-in-the-ass, especially since I felt under-powered/under-leveled when I got there. I eventually succeeded, but then the guy that hosts the festival basically said, "Come back later, the festival hasn't started yet". I did find out last night that if you go through certain questlines (like Blaidd's), it will trigger the start of the festival and you skip the double boss fight completely.

 

Note to Steam players, there was a patch that released the other day. It's about a gigabyte in size, but took 30 minutes to actually patch. Ugh. There are some instances where console players have it pretty good, haha.

[zzip]

48 minutes ago, Austin said:

Some things have gone differently than I remember on my first playthrough. For instance, at Radahn's festival, I apparently didn't qualify it yet and so I ended up having to fight a double boss, which included the Crucible Knight and Misbegotten Warrior. That was an unexpected total pain-in-the-ass, especially since I felt under-powered/under-leveled when I got there. I eventually succeeded, but then the guy that hosts the festival basically said, "Come back later, the festival hasn't started yet". I did find out last night that if you go through certain questlines (like Blaidd's), it will trigger the start of the festival and you skip the double boss fight completely.

Yeah Redmane was confusing. the festival was triggered by the time I got there as well.  There is a way to reset the castle to the pre-festival state once you beat Radahn.  I think you have to talk to one of the NPCs right after the battle,  I think it might even be Blaidd.    And talk to Jar Alexander at that point too, to progress his questline.

 

 

[Austin]

47 minutes ago, zzip said:

And talk to Jar Alexander at that point too, to progress his questline.

I had started his quest totally by accident early in my first playthrough, so he was available at the festival. In my current one now, I went back to where I first saw him in my first playthrough, and the hole he was stuck in was empty. I have no idea how to find him now (I'll have to look it up). I definitely want as many NPC helpers as possible, because fighting Radahn one-on-one is a disaster waiting to happen.

[zzip]

22 minutes ago, Austin said:

I had started his quest totally by accident early in my first playthrough, so he was available at the festival. In my current one now, I went back to where I first saw him in my first playthrough, and the hole he was stuck in was empty. I have no idea how to find him now (I'll have to look it up). I definitely want as many NPC helpers as possible, because fighting Radahn one-on-one is a disaster waiting to happen.

He should be near that bridge you take towards Caelid- you'll hear him call out as you pass.   That's the only place I think I encountered him before Redmane.

[Lostdragon]

https://metro.co.uk/2023/02/28/elden-ring-dlc-shadow-of-the-erdree-announced-seems-to-be-a-prequel-18359854/#aoh=16775930765979&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2023%2F02%2F28%2Felden-ring-dlc-shadow-of-the-erdree-announced-seems-to-be-a-prequel-18359854%2F

[zzip]

2 hours ago, Lostdragon said:

https://metro.co.uk/2023/02/28/elden-ring-dlc-shadow-of-the-erdree-announced-seems-to-be-a-prequel-18359854/#aoh=16775930765979&csi=0&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2023%2F02%2F28%2Felden-ring-dlc-shadow-of-the-erdree-announced-seems-to-be-a-prequel-18359854%2F

Awesome,  but I have to wonder how big it's going to be?    I thought the DS3 DLCs were rather short,  or would the DLC for a huge game like Elden Ring be the size of a normal AAA game?

[Austin]

Really looking forward to the DLC. I was super lukewarm on Elden Ring on my first playthrough, but I've since finished it three more times and it's easily been my favorite/most-played game of last year.  

On 2/28/2023 at 11:21 AM, zzip said:

Awesome,  but I have to wonder how big it's going to be?    I thought the DS3 DLCs were rather short,  or would the DLC for a huge game like Elden Ring be the size of a normal AAA game?

I am curious about this too. Not a lot of information about it at this moment and I'm especially curious how long it will be in development before release.

 

To be fair to Dark Souls 3's DLC, it's the most difficult content in the entire game and so I doubt most players ripped through it quickly. I personally gave up on the Ringed City when I first played it years ago, haha. Now I can tear through both of them in a couple hours or so at most (assuming I actually manage to defeat the bosses quickly, Friede in particular can take many tries). Great, great boss fights there too. I started a new run last week and am at the start of the second half of the Ringed City. Looking forward to fighting Darkeater Midir and Gael.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Austin

[IntellivisionDude]

Darks Souls 2 was my first Souls game. It is my favorite. Had a lot of fun doing co-op runs with my friends and fighting in the arena. After that, i played 1, then 3 and finally Elden Ring. All were great and Elden Ring was a masterpiece but i'll always be partial to 2. 

 

I'm not the best player. A few bosses in Elden Ring and i think 3 i would of never beaten by myself without summoning some help. lol

 

I tried Sekiro but i couldn't get the hang of it. The game destroyed me. 

 

Haven't played any Souls game in quite some time now but been meaning to go back to 2 one of these days. 

[zzip]

18 minutes ago, IntellivisionDude said:

Darks Souls 2 was my first Souls game. It is my favorite. Had a lot of fun doing co-op runs with my friends and fighting in the arena. After that, i played 1, then 3 and finally Elden Ring. All were great and Elden Ring was a masterpiece but i'll always be partial to 2. 

 

I'm not the best player. A few bosses in Elden Ring and i think 3 i would of never beaten by myself without summoning some help. lol

 

I tried Sekiro but i couldn't get the hang of it. The game destroyed me. 

 

Haven't played any Souls game in quite some time now but been meaning to go back to 2 one of these days. 

DS2 wasn't my first, but I played it before the internet told me I was supposed to hate it,  so I accidentally ended up loving it    Of course I only played the 'Scholar of the First Sin' edition, which I understand fixes many of the issues of the original.

 

Still, until Elden Ring, DS2 seemed like the most epic of the Souls games. So many varied areas to visit.  Majula is the coolest hub area.  I really liked the mechanic of having levels that are really dark and terrifying until you find and light sconces scattered around the level.  I think DS2 was the only one with this feature.

 

One thing I don't like is how enemies disappear after awhile to allegedly make the game easier.   I think it actually makes the game harder because it eliminates areas that could be used to grind for more souls.

 

 

[IntellivisionDude]

9 hours ago, zzip said:

DS2 wasn't my first, but I played it before the internet told me I was supposed to hate it,  so I accidentally ended up loving it    Of course I only played the 'Scholar of the First Sin' edition, which I understand fixes many of the issues of the original.

 

Still, until Elden Ring, DS2 seemed like the most epic of the Souls games. So many varied areas to visit.  Majula is the coolest hub area.  I really liked the mechanic of having levels that are really dark and terrifying until you find and light sconces scattered around the level.  I think DS2 was the only one with this feature.

 

One thing I don't like is how enemies disappear after awhile to allegedly make the game easier.   I think it actually makes the game harder because it eliminates areas that could be used to grind for more souls.

 

 

Yes yes yes. The music in Majula might be the best in the whole series. My first playthough was on the 360 vanilla, Then PS3 so i could play online for free, then Scholar. And those are good points about the enemies disappearing. Most people think it's an easy mode because of it. But it does it make it annoying when you are grinding for armor drops. If you fail you have to use a Bonfire Ascetic. Some armor is so rare you get 1 chance on one single enemy per playthough. 

 

One cool lesser known feature is if you put your red soap stone sign down outside the Looking Glass Knight boss room you have a chance to be summoned in and you pop out of his mirror and help the boss win and kill the person fighting him. No other souls game has such a unique feature i'm pretty sure. And it might work if you are invading in the castle as well. 

 

 

[Gentlegamer]

15 hours ago, IntellivisionDude said:

 

 

One cool lesser known feature is if you put your red soap stone sign down outside the Looking Glass Knight boss room you have a chance to be summoned in and you pop out of his mirror and help the boss win and kill the person fighting him. No other souls game has such a unique feature i'm pretty sure. And it might work if you are invading in the castle as well.

In Demon's Souls, any player using multiplayer soapstone in world 3 can be summoned to be the Old Monk boss.

 

In Dark Souls 3, members of the Spears of the Church covenant can be summoned to be the boss of the Ringed City church.

[IntellivisionDude]

8 hours ago, Gentlegamer said:

In Demon's Souls, any player using multiplayer soapstone in world 3 can be summoned to be the Old Monk boss.

 

In Dark Souls 3, members of the Spears of the Church covenant can be summoned to be the boss of the Ringed City church.

Oh wow, had no idea 

[Razzie.P]

The "Old Monk" thing was comical in real time.  Many of us didn't fully understand what was happening there. People would randomly get a loading screen then start in that room wondering what the hell happened.  The first time I ever beat the boss was because the player was clueless and didn't know we were supposed to fight.  I remember not really understanding what was going on either, until later playthroughs.  I thought the game glitched.

[zzip]

On 8/26/2023 at 2:40 PM, Razzie.P said:

The "Old Monk" thing was comical in real time.  Many of us didn't fully understand what was happening there. People would randomly get a loading screen then start in that room wondering what the hell happened.  The first time I ever beat the boss was because the player was clueless and didn't know we were supposed to fight.  I remember not really understanding what was going on either, until later playthroughs.  I thought the game glitched.

Is that the one where

Spoiler

you are the boss?

 

Yeah that was confusing at first